Interests:Needlework, including counted cross stitch and knitting, reading, dogs, triking (trikes are three wheeled motorcycled if you didn't know) and flower gardening. That is besides the paranormal...

Posted 06 June 2013 - 01:00 PM

I have the Ghost Radar Classic on my Nook. It's a fun toy, for entertainment only. I don't see how something like that could work, but I get a kick out of it. I'm very undecided about spirit boxes. I was at a conference last Sept. where they were being demonstrated. It was pretty interesting, but the couple who built and sold them that weekend turned me off. It didn't matter what you heard come from it - they heard swear words and threats. At one point during their presentation, something came out of it that was pretty clear to the audience, but the man said it was a swear word. When no one agreed with him, be began to get visibly irritated with us. Very off-putting!

"Never wrestle with a pig. All you get is dirty and the pig has all the fun." ~ Anon.

Interests:Serious Research and separating the truth from the hype in the paranormal field today.

Posted 08 June 2013 - 06:35 PM

Spirit boxes belong right there on your shelf along with Ghost Radar. Sure, fun to play with but as far as research goes just a lot of pareidolia and gobblety gook. Consider, one of the claims made eary on by Frank's Box was it would make converstion easier and more defined. Instead what we got was pareidolia and just as many, if not more, irrelevant comments and sounds which can be interpreted in many different ways. These boxes have actually mimiced certain elements of human speech to make pareidolia more likely. Most switch frequencies about 8 to 10 times per second. This just happens to be the cadence of human speech patterns. How appropriate, and how likely it fits into the pareidolia scenario. And Ovilus'devices with canned words? Read down through the avilable vocabulary and note how many words just happen to apply to something paranormal. Of course by sheer dumb luck the device is going to speak something paranormal when most of its vocabulary is skewed that way.

Facts though put the devices in their true light. Fun to play with, just like the Magic 8 Ball, but not serious research devices.

Right up there with you, Rich. 6 foot, 330, but I can reach my toes...and a lot of other things.
Redhead (ooo-la-la), I've seen the ghost detector for smart phones. I've always thought "You've got to be kidding...", and I didn't want to take up memory or space on my Iphone, so I never got one. The space is used for more important things, like the shotgun app, or light saber app, or fart app.
CaveRat, my opinion goes back and forth on these contraptions. I have never been in the presence of one, so no first-hand experience. I just go by the personal experiences of others plus what I see on tv. I know the shows are "entertainment", but a lot of what is found SEEMS to be authentic. Since I don't know if you watch any paranormal show, I pose to you this question: when relevant answers to questions asked are obtained, how can that be interpreted? Is it completely faked? Is it misinterpretation or over-reaction? Some truthfulness to the device? I don't know since I don't have the electronic expertise, so I defer to you guys. I always look ath evidence with common sense and skepticism, even within my own experiences, so I'm always asking questions and not trying to jump to conclusions.

Interests:Serious Research and separating the truth from the hype in the paranormal field today.

Posted 13 June 2013 - 09:05 AM

To explain how some answers are obtained one would have to look at each case individually. Consider the type of answer... A simple yes / no question only has two possible answers. So if you ask one, get a bunch of gibberish followed by a yes, does that mean the question was answered? Are we to ignore all the gibberish? One can't ignore anything if investigating something. Then there is the pareidolia problem. Originally these boxes were supposed to eliminate that issue but people have started accepting a bunch of noise and claim the question was answered in there somewhere. The difference is that since we ask the question first we condition ourselves to expect certain answers. Thus any noise which is subject to pareidolia already has the groundwork laid for a certain reponse. How objective is that?

I have yet to see a question asked and a detailed multi-phoneme answer directly related to the question received. Just like with EVP, a single word answer has very little credibility since it is easily duplicated by random chance. Long, detailed answers are much more difficult to debunk.

It's not what you use to communicate with the dead with but how. It is a lot like the guitar. Once you get good enough you will sound good on whatever you want. Meaning once you have a good connection with the dead they will communicate well through anything you are using.

It's not what you use to communicate with the dead with but how. It is a lot like the guitar. Once you get good enough you will sound good on whatever you want. Meaning once you have a good connection with the dead they will communicate well through anything you are using.

That sort of makes real good sense on the other hand I play a guitar OK but one night I jumped on the drums and they got me off them really really quick . : )

I wish I could communicate with the dead but the problem I have is I have not personally seen any convincing evidence as yet.Not that I am a disbeliever just saying so far I can find a logical explanation for everything that I have experienced or seen or heard and there have been some really weird things that happened too..

There are a lot of people on the other side I would love nothing better than to make contact with but even if I did I am not sure how to verify it is really them.

These so-called ghost boxes simply play on the concept of audio paredolia. Put enough snippets of sound together, add in a pulsing effect whik mimics the pattern of human speech and you get instant communication! Trouble is it is all contrived in the mind of the listener. Ghost boxes and Shack hacks all work using the same principle.

Consider just what would be required of a spirit if one was to try to use such a device. It would need to know what station the snippet of sound was going to be available on before the fact so it xould "tune" that station, then it would have to provide a voltage to the appropriate pin of the tuning chip at that precise instant to cause the chip to select the desired station. (This voltage would need to be accurrate to yhe millivolt, otherwise the wrong station would be selected!) And all this would need to be done in milliseconds without error since an error would result in flawed speech.

Oh, and all this from a spirit who, if one follows the ommon belief, may have lived 100 years or more ago when a basic telephone was considered high tech, and most people considered basic electricity a miracle....

My investigations use proven scientific methods and equipment following accepted practices. We are out to find answers, not ghosts.

But what if , what if there are ghost , I find possible even probable explanations for things i have experienced and somehow that does not conclude that other more unusual explanations might not be the answer such as ghost.Example ; on several occasions voices have sang with me and I mean clear voices in key and on rhythm.likely a phenomena of some kind such as based on some principle such as heterodyning causing a natural harmonizing effect but what if .it is that what if that keeps my interest.I know a negative can not be proven just as some atheist say and that applies to many things but that does not discount or eliminate the possibility of an existing God and the same would go for ghost and a whole bunch of other things even if they are forever left to remain unproven .

Interests:Serious Research and separating the truth from the hype in the paranormal field today.

Posted 26 July 2013 - 02:52 PM

Most debates regarding spirits and what they can do evolve back to the statement, "We really don't know what they are capable of." That may be true as far as it goes, but when it comes to ghost boxes we DO know a few things. These devices were designed and built using netural, proven science. Electronics is governed by certain laws of physics. We know, and can prove that give a certain input certain outputs will be obtained. We can prove pareidolia, it has been done over and over under controlled conditions. Thus a statement of fact can be made that when certain conditions are met pareidolia will result.

Which brings us back to ghost boxes. These devices meet the requirements to generate pareidolia. therefore when one uses them as intended pareidolia is not only possible it is expected. And when it appears one should not assume a spirit is present. Instead consider the known aspects and expect pareidolia.

Of course I am not saying spirits don't exist or anything elase regarding them. I am saying only that the ghost box is NOT the way to go about conducting research. We need a different method not so fraught with false positives.

Most debates regarding spirits and what they can do evolve back to the statement, "We really don't know what they are capable of." That may be true as far as it goes, but when it comes to ghost boxes we DO know a few things. These devices were designed and built using netural, proven science. Electronics is governed by certain laws of physics. We know, and can prove that give a certain input certain outputs will be obtained. We can prove pareidolia, it has been done over and over under controlled conditions. Thus a statement of fact can be made that when certain conditions are met pareidolia will result.

Which brings us back to ghost boxes. These devices meet the requirements to generate pareidolia. therefore when one uses them as intended pareidolia is not only possible it is expected. And when it appears one should not assume a spirit is present. Instead consider the known aspects and expect pareidolia.

Of course I am not saying spirits don't exist or anything elase regarding them. I am saying only that the ghost box is NOT the way to go about conducting research. We need a different method not so fraught with false positives.

All excellent points CaveRat2 though we do not know where ghost go or are from or even what they are with certainty , for all we know it might be linked with another / other dimension( s) where our rules might not appear to apply the same or some other considerations that may have never been taken by us .Odds are you are absolutely right though .

Personally I would even trust my intuition and feelings over the boxes but who knows for sure.

Interests:Needlework, including counted cross stitch and knitting, reading, dogs, triking (trikes are three wheeled motorcycled if you didn't know) and flower gardening. That is besides the paranormal...

Posted 18 August 2013 - 01:27 PM

I wouldn't call the aps for phones and tablets hoaxes, per se. They are for entertainment purposes, and don't claim at all to actually work. I have Ghost Radar Classic on my Nook, and think it's a hoot. To me a hoax is a deliberate attempt to deceive people, and I think the people who make this are just making making some money entertaining us. If people want to believe in something badly enough, nothing will convince them that they are mistaken.

"Never wrestle with a pig. All you get is dirty and the pig has all the fun." ~ Anon.

I wouldn't call the aps for phones and tablets hoaxes, per se. They are for entertainment purposes, and don't claim at all to actually work. I have Ghost Radar Classic on my Nook, and think it's a hoot. To me a hoax is a deliberate attempt to deceive people, and I think the people who make this are just making making some money entertaining us. If people want to believe in something badly enough, nothing will convince them that they are mistaken.

Agreed!! I have played with those APPS and they are fun. Who knows how or if it even works...... BUT it is a good way to mess with your friends